I am new at this game and I was thinking about ways to improve my game. I encountered a video about a Grand Master from south America, when he was asked about improving one's game he answered: "Just play  as much as you can!".  So I just played. I could attend up to twenty games a day; especially weekends. It is true that the more you play the more you learn from your opponents and your mistakes, but soon I realized that my gains in improvements are way too few comparing to the time I invest. Therefore, I changed my approach and started to invest most of my time in studying the games I play. An example of that, I could spend more than an hour studying a 5min blitz game I played. The result? Better games and better results and I enjoy the game more.

Tell us what you think about this and share your thoughts with us.

 

Quality, always.

Yeah, definately quality. Play long games, and analyze them carefully. You are going to learn a lot more rather than going through the motions or worse, reinforcing bad habits.

Your GM from South America was right on, great advice, follow it. Good luck!

I would say quality to begin with, then gradually increase the quantity.

So beginners should concentrate on slower time controls with in-depth post-analysis (use your losses) in concert with study, then once some understanding is achieved play more and more at faster time controls (I think there is benefit from just playing masses of games, it just has to have some foundation of understanding).

In a nut shell: quality then quantity > just quality > just quantity

When the GM said: Play as much as you can, I'm pretty sure he didn't mean to play dozens of blitz games every day. Playing 10 slow games a week,  really putting your best efforts into each game,  will do more to develop your chess than a thousand blitz games.